Cross Docking

What is Cross Docking?

Cross Docking is used in transportation to streamline the supply chain between point of origin and point of sales.

Why use Cross Docking?

Instead of delivering many small orders in a big truck from the distribution center to the goods recipients it is more efficient to deliver the orders to one Cross Docking location and deconsolidate the orders and regroup them into multiple tours for smaller trucks.

How does Cross Docking work?

The picking and packing for the goods recipient happens in the distribution center, the Cross Docking location is only used to sort and move the cargo from the big truck to the smaller trucks with minimal or no warehousing activities. This can also be used to consolidate at the Cross Docking location multiple orders from different distribution centers for the same goods recipient.

What are the results of optimizing Cross Docking?

Applying optimized Cross Docking leads to the following results, it reduces:

• the need to handle and store products in a warehouse while saving on labour costs
• the time to reach the recipient
• transportation costs due to full truckloads, which is environmentally friendly